Constitutional Amendment to Allow a Secret Ballot

[Peter]

You say you have read it thoroughly, but it clearly hasn't occured to you to read it thoroughly enough to read Section 2 which is directly focussed solely on the constitutional issues and then ask yourself: Why has he got this funny 2nd clause that doesn't appear in mine?

[MasterJedi]

In what little time I have now to read the Commissions Report (I mostly read the amendment) I believe that we should vote to replace the original amendment on here with the commissions one.

[Gabu]

No.  The amendment merely allows the Senate to decide between three choices of voting that it can implement:

• Public ballot;
• Mandatory secret ballot;
• A combination of both, or allowing the voters to choose which.

All three systems would be legal under the amendment's wording.  It would need to be reworded to ensure that a mandatory secret ballot would not be legal, though I have been unable to write a suitable amendment to the amendment that takes care of this.

Okay, how about we change "or" to "and"?  I think it will be quite clear under that wording that both systems must be available.

[MasterJedi]

So, what are we discussing here now?

[Emsworth]

Senator MasterJedi has made the motion to replace the current amendment with the amendment created by the comission.

Hmm, if I recall correctly, that's just the text of the Secret Ballot Bill. The text that the Commission recommended for the amendment (rather than the bill) was, I believe:

1. The requirement that elections to the Senate and the Presidency be by public post is repealed.
2. Under no circumstances shall a polling method which allows a person to anonymously vote be used in any election or vote mandated under this Constitution. This clause shall not be construed to require that a person's vote is publicly disclosed to all citizens.
3. This Amendment shall only become operative if ratified within one calendar year from the date of its submission to the Regions by the Senate.

[Defarge]

Thanks Justice Emsworth, I copied and pasted the wrong thing.

Master Jedi has made the motion to replace the current amendment with Peter's, the text of which can be found below:

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[MasterJedi]

Uh Defarge, that's not what I wanted it to be replaced with, this is.


Section 1

1. During any federal election, a registered voter may choose to submit their ballot or absentee ballot in secret. This is considered an optional alternative form of voting to a public ballot. The method of vote submission is outlined in Section 2, Clause 4 below.
2. All secret ballots must satisfy all clauses outlined in Section 1 of the Omnibus Election System, Procedure and Certification Act.
3. No registered voter may vote both publicly and secretly in the same election. If this occurs, the Secretary of Forum Affairs will discount both votes.

Section 2

1. For the purposes of counting and validating secret ballots, an Electoral Committee will be assembled by no later than a week before the election is scheduled to begin.
2. The Committee will be comprised of three members, consisting of the Secretary of Forum Affairs, the Vice President, and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
3. In the event that any of the office holders listed either are themselves candidates in the election or are not present to fulfill their duty, those in the aforementioned situation shall be replaced by the highest office holder in the following list who is not a candidate present in the election and who is present to fulfill the duty:

• Secretary of State
• Attorney General
• Secretary of Defense
• Secretary of the Treasury
• District 1 Senator
• District 2 Senator
• District 3 Senator
• District 4 Senator
• District 5 Senator
• Mideast Regional Senator
• Midwest Regional Senator
• Northeast Regional Senator
• Pacific Regional Senator
• Southeast Regional Senator

4. Identical copies of all secret ballots will be submitted for counting by the voter to each of the three members of the Committee in the form of a personal message.
5. Once voting has officially ended, the Committee will convene in a private and suitable manner. Each member will ensure that their own collected ballots are identical to the corresponding ballots collected by the other two members.
6. In the event that any one of the three copies of a ballot does not match the corresponding copies, the ballot will be discounted.
7. All legitimate ballots will then be incorporated into the vote count and subsequent certification for the relevant election.
8. Once the election has been certified, the Committee will disband.
9. Corruption, electoral fraud, the changing of votes, and tampering with any votes in any way, is hereby criminalized in Atlasia. All members of said committee who are found guilty of any of these charges will have all their voting rights stripped for a maximum for one year. Trails will be conducted according to the provisions set in place by the Omnibus Criminal Law Act.

[Defarge]

That's what I originally posted.  The thing is that's the actual bill detailing how to vote in secret.  The Constitution must first be amended to allow secret balloting.  Then we can pass the bill proposed by the commission on how to conduct secret voting. 

Of course, if you want me to switch back to voting on the secret ballot bill before it is constitutional, I will do so.

[MasterJedi]

That's what I originally posted.  The thing is that's the actual bill detailing how to vote in secret.  The Constitution must first be amended to allow secret balloting.  Then we can pass the bill proposed by the commission on how to conduct secret voting. 

Of course, if you want me to switch back to voting on the secret ballot bill before it is constitutional, I will do so.

I was thinking of the bill instead of the amendment, anyways I will be supporting Gabu's instead of Peter's now.

[Gabu]

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This amendment seems awfully wordy; I don't immediately see what it covers that my amendment doesn't, although that may be because I'm not really sure what section 2 is saying, exactly.

[Emsworth]

This amendment seems awfully wordy; I don't immediately see what it covers that my amendment doesn't, although that may be because I'm not really sure what section 2 is saying, exactly.

Section 2 forbids the usage of anonymous polls. For example, if we adopt this version, it would be unconstitutional to use the polling feature of the Atlas Forum to determine presidential elections.

I think that forbidding the use of polls is a very good idea. Anyone--even those who are not qualified--could potentially vote in a poll. There must be some system to check that only registered voters are actually voting, but this is impossible if we have an anonymous poll.

[Gabu]

This amendment seems awfully wordy; I don't immediately see what it covers that my amendment doesn't, although that may be because I'm not really sure what section 2 is saying, exactly.

Section 2 forbids the usage of anonymous polls. For example, if we adopt this version, it would be unconstitutional to use the polling feature of the Atlas Forum to determine presidential elections.

I think that forbidding the use of polls is a very good idea. Anyone--even those who are not qualified--could potentially vote in a poll. There must be some system to check that only registered voters are actually voting, but this is impossible if we have an anonymous poll.

Okay, then we have two changes to make to the current amendment:

1. To change "or" to "and".
2. To insert "non-anonymous" before "secret ballot".

It seems to me that the amendment I quoted would not prohibit a mandatory secret ballot, and rather, would allow elections to be done however we feel like it, as long as it's not anonymous.

[Brandon H]

3. In the event that any of the office holders listed either are themselves candidates in the election or are not present to fulfill their duty, those in the aforementioned situation shall be replaced by the highest office holder in the following list who is not a candidate present in the election and who is present to fulfill the duty:

• Secretary of State
• Attorney General
• Secretary of Defense
• Secretary of the Treasury
• District 1 Senator
• District 2 Senator
• District 3 Senator
• District 4 Senator
• District 5 Senator
• Mideast Regional Senator
• Midwest Regional Senator
• Northeast Regional Senator
• Pacific Regional Senator
• Southeast Regional Senator

While hopefully the list would not get down to the Senators (expluding the PPT), I would suggest ordering the Senators by seniority.

[Ebowed]

Changing the amendment wording from "or" to "and" would render our current system entirely unconstitutional immediately upon the ratification of the amendment.  We would need to hurriedly pass whatever the first optional Secret Ballot bill proposed is (which conveniently happens to be yours'), with little debate or changing in order to get a constitutional system as soon as possible.

[Peter]

Okay, lets be quite clear because it is reasonably clear that you people cannot read.

Appendix One attached to this report is NOT in any way endorsed as a possible Secret Voting Bill by the Commission.[/u]

In Section 1, the Commission states:

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Appendix One is nothing more than a reference to that which had gone before. It could certainly be a good base for a bill, but it will have to be totally rewritten to comport with the conclusion's of the Commission.

As if to clarify the situation, the Commission also states in Section 8:

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[MasterJedi]

Is there a way to add to the amendment that secret voting cannot be done until the Senate passes a Secret Voting Bill and Procedure?

If not could we get a vote on Gabu's original amendment?

[Gabu]

Changing the amendment wording from "or" to "and" would render our current system entirely unconstitutional immediately upon the ratification of the amendment.  We would need to hurriedly pass whatever the first optional Secret Ballot bill proposed is (which conveniently happens to be yours'), with little debate or changing in order to get a constitutional system as soon as possible.

Good point.  It would be easy enough to simply add on a thing at the end of the amendment saying that the amendment will not come into force until a bill replacing the current electoral system is passed.

I don't appreciate the implication that I had some deep, scheming motive behind my oversight of this point, as there was none.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've lost track of this. Where the hell are we now?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do we have an appeals process?

[MasterJedi]

We're wondering if we can throw something in that would make it so nobody can use a secret ballot until we pass a procedure to do so but we don't know how.

[Gabu]

Okay, here's the official version of the amendment, unless someone can find something else that should be added:

Definitions

Non-anonymous secret ballot: any form of ballot where each vote made can be directly linked to a specific voter, but where the link is not known to the general public.

§1. The text "All elections to the Senate shall be by public post." in Article I, Section 4, Clause 6 of the constitution is hereby stricken and replaced with "All elections to the Senate shall be by both public post and non-anonymous secret ballot, from which options a voter may choose one or the other, but not both."

§2. The text "All elections to the Presidency shall be by public post." in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the constitution is hereby stricken and replaced with "All elections to the Presidency shall be by both public post and non-anonymous secret ballot, from which options a voter may choose one or the other, but not both."

§3. Following ratification by the regions, this amendment shall be considered ineffectual until federal legislation is passed that explicitly declares that this amendment shall come into power.

[Platypus]

add in a section directing exactly what "non-anonymous secret ballot" means for future reference.

[Gabu]

add in a section directing exactly what "non-anonymous secret ballot" means for future reference.

Yeah, I was thinking about that.  I'll go do that right now.

[Ebowed]

I don't appreciate the implication that I had some deep, scheming motive behind my oversight of this point, as there was none.

Sorry, I was poking some fun, I forgot to put a smiley in there somewhere.  I don't seriously think you had some evil plan to push your bill on the Senate without debate... need to start using those silly smileys more often.

The new amendment looks pretty decent (although I still oppose secret voting either way).

[MasterJedi]

So can we get a vote on Gabu's new amendment then?